


not so much dreams as they are nightmares

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: PTSD, liberal usage of commas and repetition, mention(s) of suicidal thoughts and/or actions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the Avengers have dreams, and near none of them are pleasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not so much dreams as they are nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I wish this could be funny, I wish I could write something funny, but I tried earlier tonight and it wasn’t happening. So I decided I’d write something (mildly?) depressing. Some of the things (Clint's circus history/past) are based more upon headcanons or things I've seen mulling about. 
> 
> I tend to write about dreams a lot, don't I?

Tony Stark has lots of dreams.

He has not had a good dream that he can remember in a long, long time.

He dreams of darkness, and eyes coming out of them, like dual snake tongues ready to slip him poison; he dreams of waves upon waves, slowly slowly encasing him, swallowing him up like he belonged there.

He wakes up encased with sweat, and he panics again, for it is wet and he fears for a moment that he has been swallowed by the ocean and ponders if he’s woken up in the future, much like Steve. It takes him a few minutes but he always reestablishes himself before daring to let a soul see, for Tony Stark is Tony Stark, and Tony Stark cannot afford to be afraid.

He dreams of hands around his neck, he dreams of being blown up, and he dreams of blowing up. He dreams of blowing up with his weapons, and he hates those dreams, he hates them like nothing else.

Sometimes, he dreams of Howard and Maria and Obie, but those are the worst, they are the worst. He dreams of what it would’ve been like to have a normal life; he dreams of what it would’ve been like to have been loved; and finally, finally, he dreams of what it would be like to be dead. He dreams of Obie getting his way. He dreams of himself getting his own way. He dreams a lot about dying, but we all know Tony Stark cannot be afraid, and he cannot fear death.

So he wakes up, has some brandy, and continues on.

(That does not mean that when he closes his lids, he only sees darkness. Because he sees everything the darkness can hold, he sees the eyes, he sees the poison, he sees the hand and the armor, he sees the arc reactor.

But he’ll shuffle into the living room and keep his eyes splayed open, staring at the moving colors of the T.V., and listening to the voices, alive, alive.)

***

Steve dreams too.

He, unlike Tony, is somewhat capable of having a good dream.

They’re all good until he wakes up.

Maybe he’ll be dancing with Peggy, and she’ll smile, and say “Captain, you’re late,” and he’ll say “Didn’t mean to be, Miss Carter,” and they’ll laugh and the music will turn off and he’ll be in his room, alone, alone. He stares at the wall until the smiling image of her is burned onto it, like a wound.

Maybe he’ll be playing cards with Bucky, and joking, and listening of Bucky’s latest escapade (“I swear she was gonna kiss me right then, man,”), but then Bucky falls, falls falls falls falls, like teardrops like rain like pain like hope, he falls, so slowly, and it plays over like a record, falling, screaming, and he can hear the scream long after he wakes.

Maybe he dreams of driving somewhere, to go out with his friends, and then he’ll be at the helm of a plane. He can feel his hands slipping because they’re slick with sweat, and his lashes are stuck together with tears, and the radio is fuzzy, it’s just static, and there was never Peggy at all. It’s just him and ice, and he can see it blurring into his vision like clouds on a blue-sky day, and he thinks he’ll never see one again.

And then he wakes up, with his chest rising and falling so quickly that he chokes on air, and his hands have to touch everything around him just to make sure they’re not ice, they’re not cold. And then he holds his shield and stumbles into the living room, because he doesn’t know where else to go.

(Let it be said that he’s glad he moved into the “Avengers Mansion”, because when he wakes up, he can go in the living room and see someone. He can hear them talk to him, and he knows they’re real, and it warms him up like a blanket. Alive, alive, it chimes, alive.)

***

Thor dreams of space, and of his family in Asguard. Thor dreams of everything.

And all of them start with Loki coming back.

But all of them end with Loki letting go.

 (When Thor arrives in the living room, everyone smiles, and he smiles back. Because this is his family, his second one, and he loves them. Not like he loves Loki, but close enough.

And sometimes, they already have poptarts sitting out for him.)

***

Most often Bruce dreams of accidents: accidentally killing those he loves, accidentally killing anyone; he dreams of the accident that laid him in his very bed, he dreams of things if they had gone different.

Bruce also dreams of blood, oozing; he dreams of it melting things, of it melting him. He dreams of dropping his own blood on himself to see if he can distort more, he dreams of dying, but not in the way Tony dreams of dying. He dreams of dying in the way that Natasha holds her gun.

When he wakes he shakes the thoughts, for they’re impossible, for he’s tried. He always, always tries to go back to sleep, but his thoughts manifest themselves and he gives up. But he nearly always showers, too, as if it’d wash the ever-lasting green twinge that lurks beneath his skin and runs in his blood.

(They usually brew tea for Bruce, as it’s his favorite. It is set on the table next to the chair on a coaster Steve had insisted on—despite Tony saying he could just buy a new table. But the coaster is lacy and crisp, and he likes it, so it stays.)

***

Natasha’s dreams are all very edgy, and that is the kindest term for them.

They’re like flashbacks in a movie; they flip and flip and flip, so quickly that one cannot register the image. The background music is gunfire, is screaming, is muffled Russian slurring, it is death, and she can smell it. It never leaves her, the stagnant smell of death, but it only awakens at night.

She wakes up in the dark to the smell of burning flesh and she pulls out a gun, but she never shoots it, she never could. It’d smell like death even more, and how unkind would it be to subject everyone to that.

She has nightmares that are much worse, and when she wakes up from them, she pushes them from her mind like everything else. For she is worried that they might be memories, from long ago, that they might tell of her past. Memories that would pull the trigger.

(When she slips in, they usually have the movie going already, but they fill her in quickly enough; the plus side of coming in late is that the coffee’s already brewed, and there are enough voices to where they nearly never stop, there’s always a whisper, and it’s never silent like death is.)

***

Clint dreams in lots of colors, like crayons exploding.

He dreams of red and white striped tents, of canons and men being shot from them; he dreams of clapping, of watching them clap, and he dreams of standing on the small podium like he had used to. He dreams of soaking in the applause.

And then he dreams of pulling his bow out and firing, but missing the target; he dreams of hitting someone, of hitting everyone with them, and then he wakes up. Sometimes he’s so angry that he’s disappointed, that he’s mad he couldn’t see them wallow in fear. How could a child so young be happy there—couldn’t they his smile, how it didn’t reach his eyes?

But then his thoughts rationalize, and he disregards the rest of what he dreams. He’s only ever told Natasha of what lurks behind the circus curtain, of the red eyes, of the painted face. Clint is afraid of clowns, but he’s got a very good reason to be.

(He gets there last, always, and grumbles about how they’ve already started the movie. But there’s nearly always a second, so he doesn’t mind. He likes the muteness of the living room; of the browns and tans that everything is colored, and he likes how everyone smiles at him when he walks in. Soft smiles. Knowing smiles.)

***

It’s not every night that all of them meet there, for sometimes one is lucky enough to nab a full night’s sleep. But there’re always two, and if it’s two, they usually chit-chat. They talk about everything, about little things, and sometimes, they’ll share what they dreamed of.

Sometimes they’ll bake, or cook; maybe they’ll both read, paw through a magazine (or twelve). It doesn’t matter what they do, they just need another person, they need breathing.

They need to know they’re here and not there. 


End file.
